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Christian's View of Death

God does not call us home. Death sends us home, but God welcomes us and we do not come as a surprise to him.

1. Neither our life nor our death is according to God's need. God is sovereign. He does not need us. He loves us. If He needed us, then to take the righteous and leave the wicked would be poor "asset management." God is not a poor asset manager.

2. Death is our enemy, not a reward. I'm opposed to the current "celebration" of death. Those who pass through death celebrate; those left behind grieve. The scripture says "we grieve not as those who have no hope." But we grieve; we do not celebrate.

3. Death is a natural process. Whenever there was an exception in the scripture, it was pointed out, i.e. Elijah or Enoch. We read "nothing has befallen you that is not common to man." But death, when it happens, is so traumatic that we do not accept it as a common experience.

4. God does not use death to manipulate our lives. Those who are left have no special responsibility laid on them.

5. The Christian reality:

(a) We have assurance where the dead in the Christ have gone. Do not ask me to define the minute details; I cannot, but that does not interfere with my implicit faith.

(b) We have the Holy Spirit as comforter, and this is why we do not grieve as those who have no hope.

(c) We have the fellowship of the family of believers. Unfortunately, sometimes we do a better job in the short term than the long term on this one.

(d) We have the hope of reuniting. This is the "blessed hope." Eternity is the focus of life.